One and done

MARKETS

• U.S. markets: The Dow and S&P finished up ahead of many late-day earnings announcements. Investors are closely watching the 10-year Treasury yield.
• Yesterday's earnings news: Chipotle ordered double meat on its way to a 7% revenue increase, and the stock shot up 10% after hours. Ford (+2.61% after hours) is ramping up its cost cutting plans as it phases out sedans like the Taurus and the Fusion in North America.
• Earnings today: Amazon, Microsoft, Intel, Shell, PepsiCo, GM.

TECH

Facebook Shares Earnings, Twitter Tweets Them

Facebook and Twitter, the two companies that occupy all your waking moments, reported earnings yesterday. So we thought, "Hey, what's another two minutes to get a peek behind the curtain?"

Facebook gonna Facebook

Our main question: The swirling Cambridge Analytica data privacy scandal had people claiming they were #deletingFacebook. But...did they actually?

Of course not. Zuck's lightning rod of a company beat revenue and profit estimates, while its battered stock shot up 5% after hours. Here are 3 big takeaways:

• Facebook runs ads, Senator, and they ran a whole lot in Q1. Revenue jumped 50% to nearly $12 billion. It added 70 million monthly active users, reaching 2.2 billion total.
• We should have seen this coming: Remember the good ol' days when Facebook was dealing with the uproar over Russian "fake news" (Q3 2017)? Yeah, it also grew its profit 79% then.
• Zuck continued the tail-between-his-legs routine, saying: "We are taking a broader view of our responsibility and investing to make sure our services are used for good. But we also need to keep building new tools to help people connect, strengthen our communities, and bring the world closer together."

Okay, Facebook. We get it—you're crushing. How's Twitter doing?

Not...bad?

• It's profitable ($61 million in net income) for the second straight quarter. Impressive? No. Newsworthy? Yes. Previously, Twitter was unprofitable for 16 straight quarters.
• Stable growth: Monthly active users grew 2.8%, a solid but not eye-popping number. Still, that'll send the Twitter doomsday predictors back into hiding.
• Kanye's back.

But there's cause for concern

• Saturated domestic market: Only one million of Twitter's new monthly users came from the U.S., a market that's a main target for advertisers.
• Scrutiny from lawmakers: Facebook might have volunteered as tribute to Congress...but Twitter's also come under fire for allowing the spread of misinformation and hate speech.
• Kanye's back.

MEDIA

Comcast Starts a Bidding War for Sky

Comcast (+2.73%) is reaching for the Sky, offering to buy the European pay-TV company for $31 billion. That should put 21st Century Fox's Rupert Murdoch in a funk. Fox (+1.55%), which already owns 39% of Sky, recently bid $16 billion to acquire the rest of it.

Hey Rupert, you've been one-upped. And directors at Sky seemed to agree—they quickly retracted their support of Fox.

How'd Fox respond? It's "currently considering its options."

We'd keep an eye on this one: The stakes are high. If Comcast grabs Sky, it'll immediately gain more access to the European market. If Fox wins the bidding war, some (aka regulators) fear it might give Murdoch (who controls many UK media properties) a monopoly.

Then there's Disney, who's in the middle of acquiring $52 billion of Fox assets and is also required to bid for Sky. One thing's for sure...someone is buying Sky.

TECH

Tim Cooks up a Private Meeting with Trump

Donald Trump told Tim Cook to ‘step inside my oval office.' And ahead of the private discussion, the president could hardly contain himself:

Cook was also psyched. He's become the de facto White House liaison for a U.S. tech community that's pretty anxious about $150 billion in proposed tariffs on China. He's craving the opportunity to talk Trump down from the trade war ledge.

Why's that? The gadget you're using to read this email (plus all the other ones you own) was probably made in a single Chinese city called Shenzhen. A tax on electronics imported from China could force Apple—and the broader tech community—to raise prices for consumers.

And while we don't know what happened in the room, you can bet Cook and Trump agreed on one thing: China needs to level the playing field for foreign companies.

How you achieve that is up for debate.

SPORTS

A Proposal to Clean Up College Basketball

The chair of the Commission on College Basketball and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gave some Condoleezza advice yesterday:

1. The NBA should nix the one-and-done rule, allowing high school basketball players to opt for the pros before 19.
2. College players should be paid portions of the revenue they drive from their "names, images, and likenesses."
3. And a whole lot more.

Why a change is needed: There's a world of economic incentives driving bad actors in an increasingly shady college sport—one that drives the bulk of the NCAA's $1 billion in revenue.

Let's refresh: Last year, a number of college basketball coaches—like Louisville's Rick Pitino—packed their gym bags following an FBI investigation that made a not-so-shocking discovery. For years, agents, players, coaches, and reps for athletic brands (like Nike and Adidas) were colluding to secure talent and money.

Bottom line: The commission laid out a number of potential solutions to curb corruption, including financial transparency from big brands involved in recruitment tournaments. One thing it didn't recommend? Paying the players a salary.

WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• Nasdaq's (+1.79%) CEO said the company would consider becoming a platform for cryptocurrency trading.
• Peter Thiel is dropping his bid for Gawker.
• The NYSE paused trading for five stocks, including Amazon and Alphabet, following a technical glitch.
• The NYT got its hands on a leaked recording of a fiery October meeting between NFL players, executives, and owners.
• A closer look at WeWork's current financial status.
• AT&T's (-4.40% after hours) disappointing quarter shows just how badly it needs to complete its acquisition of Time Warner.

WATER COOLER

BIGGER PICTURE

They say a picture is worth 1,000 words. Which is great...because we definitely don't have room.

Nothing screams confidence like redesigning your redesign. So that's exactly what Snapchat is doing. After Kylie Jenner couldn't keep up with the new look (a single tweet lost the company $1.3 billion) and a fire hose of user criticism, Snap is making a change.

For some users, it'll test moving user stories onto the Discover page alongside brands, celebrities, and other content.

Why that's important: Separating friends from celebs and brands was exactly what Snap wanted to get away from with the first redesign.

Gmail said, ‘We can redesign, too.'

The highlights?

1. A built-in Google calendar on the side-bar.
2. "Snooze" and "nudging" features that remind you to answer important emails.
3. "Confidential mode," which is Gmail's version of a Snap. Aka, you can set a time limit on sent emails, telling them when to "self-destruct." We all know someone who needs this.

THE BREAKROOM

AROUND THE WORLD
Who needs coal? Last week, the United Kingdom went a record 55 hours without using coal for power generation. And it's not a coincidence. The UK has been pouring resources into renewable energy—it has the most offshore wind farms in the world. The ultimate goal? Say goodbye to all coal plants by 2025.

TALK LIKE THE CREW
Junk bonds—High-yield bonds. But wait, there's a catch. You know how you're given a credit score? Companies are given one, too. When they issue bonds, credit rating agencies (think Moody's) give them a ranking on a scale of 1 to Junk.

The more likely a company is to meet its debt payments, the better the score it receives (these are investment grade bonds). The less likely, the worse the score (aka junk bonds). So why do people buy junk bonds? Greater risk translates to greater (potential) returns.

BRAIN TEASER
1) There is only one 2-digit number that is both a square and a cube. What is it?

2) There is only one 3-digit number that is both a square and a cube. What is it?

3) Which 3-digit number, made of consecutive digits, is 2 less than a cube and 2 more than a square?

4) What 2-digit number is 1 more than a square and 1 less than a cube?

(Answer located at bottom of newsletter)

Breakroom Answers

Brain Teaser
1) 64
2) 729
3) 123 is two more than 121 (11 times 11) and two less than 125 (5 times 5 times 5)
4) 26 is one more than 25 (5 times 5) and one less than 27 (3 times 3 times 3)